From Square One
by mantisbelle
Summary: Ever since the incident at Vale's docks, Weiss knows that she's been tiptoeing around Blake's presence. It's time to fix that, and some honesty is a good place to start. Written for Monochrome Week on Tumblr.


Ever since Blake had run off with Sun and disappeared from right under their noses, Weiss had found herself with a great deal more worries than she had before. She felt like she was walking on unsteady ground, or trying to make sense of things that it would have been impossible to truly salvage. A lot of what she'd been doing was trying to do some soul searching.

If she and Blake were going to get along, and were going to work as teammates, then Weiss needed to know that they could trust each other. That meant that she needed to correct some of her own behavior, and Blake needed to do the same on her end.

Weiss truly did want to be able to believe in the promise that Blake had made to her. If something happened again, Blake would come to her and their team, and they would work it out together. But without anything having arisen, that seemed to be a moot point.

On her end of the deal, Weiss was making an attempt at being nicer. It just wasn't easy.

She just needed to try and find a way to get herself and Blake feeling like teammates.

It was part of the reason that Weiss was currently sitting alone in Team RWBY's dorm. Blake had gone off to the library that day, and to Weiss' knowledge Ruby and Yang had run off with Nora to do something- not that she really wanted to know what those three would get up to if left alone. Weiss had politely declined the invitation to join them, since she felt like she could have used some quiet herself.

Weiss pushed as many of the troubling thoughts from her mind, and just tried to focus on her studies for a bit.

An hour into her working, the door opened and Weiss snapped her head up.

Blake was there by the door, and looking a little bit surprised. Weiss felt a jab of guilt at that and simply sat up, resting her notebook down in front of her.

"Blake." She greeted her teammate. "I didn't know that you would be back so soon."

"Right." Blake responded, but she sounded wary and unsure.

Weiss couldn't blame her. The two of them hadn't exactly gotten much in the way of genuine one on one time together since the incident. Usually there was always someone else there, and so any nastiness that was still left behind never had a chance to get expressed.

But now they were alone.

Feeling almost sheepish, Weiss looked down at her notebook. "I was just trying to do some homework." She started, picking up her pen and letting her fingers tap on its barrel, nervous. "Would you like to join me?"

Blake frowned, and she walked over to her own bunk, setting down her bag and removing a few things from it. "Is there some special reason that you're asking me?"

"You're here." Weiss answered, wincing internally at the realization that it probably sounded really bad for her to have phrased it that way. "And I was hoping that we could get a chance to... talk."

"You want to talk?" Blake asked, reaching up for the spot where her bow was tied.

Weiss was struck with an incredibly awkward feeling that she didn't know how to shake. Despite them being roommates and teammates, she had never really seen Blake without her bow before.

Ruby had said that Blake had kitty ears, _and_ they were kind of cute.

Now that she had a chance to look, Weiss would be willing to corroborate that explanation.

"I do." Weiss said, her gaze still focused on Blake's ears. "If you don't mind."

Blake narrowed her eyes though. "Will you stop staring at my ears if I say yes?"

Weiss blinked and couldn't help but be taken aback, because that was something that she hadn't even realized she'd been doing. "I'm sorry." Weiss mumbled the words out. "I didn't realize-"

"Look-" Blake muttered. "Can we drop this and just do our homework?"

"Yeah." Weiss said, feeling even more nervous now than she had before. "Of course. I was about to start on Professor Oobleck's assignment on-" She cut herself off, frowning when she got a look at the topic that they had been given to study. "On the early exploitation of Vacuo."

Blake nodded and grabbed her own work supplies before sitting down on her own bunk, far from where Weiss was. Awkward. Everything about this was _awkward_.

Weiss couldn't help the feeling that there were very few ways in which this could go as well as she wanted it to. After all, she was grappling with this feeling that Blake didn't want to be there at all. It felt so much more like her presence was merely being tolerated.

But Blake opened up her textbook, and Weiss did what she could to focus on her own work. The two of them set themselves to the task, taking short breaks once in a while to exchange a few words, but very little coming out from it beside that.

After an hour of them studying, the two of them had managed to burn through a rather significant amount of their work. Which left Weiss worrying again.

"Weiss-" Blake started from out of the blue. "I know that you said that you wanted to talk."

Weiss hesitated, capping her pen and setting it down on her notepad. She kept her eyes on the notes for a little longer than she would have liked, but Weiss felt like she needed a chance to be able to prepare herself for what was to come.

"I did." Weiss said, her voice quiet. "I just... need to know that if we are going to talk about things, we're both going to be honest with each other about what's said." She looked at Blake finally, and saw the slight twitch of one of Blake's ears, while Blake's face betrayed very little about her. "It won't work if we don't."

"Okay." Blake said after a moment. "What did you want to talk about?"

Weiss took a breath. "I feel like..." She hesitated. "Like you and I have been avoiding each other since the incident down at the docks." In her lap, Weiss' hands balled into fists almost out of reflex. "And if we're going to be teammates, then we can't have that."

"So you want to know if I've been avoiding you?" Blake asked, her expression sharp.

"I do." Weiss said, still keeping her voice down almost like she was afraid they would be overheard. "I think that I have been too. And I'm sorry about that. I've just been-" Weiss' voice trailed off when she realized that she didn't have the words that she wanted to say. After all, when it came to Blake some things were always going to be difficult for both of them. Their histories alone set up room for too much bad blood.

They'd given each other reasons for there to be bad blood.

"I have been." Blake said, her voice low in volume but also sounding a little bit rough. "I haven't really known what to do ever since..." She shook her head, ears twitching for just a second before she continued speaking. "I mostly feel like I don't know how you and I are supposed to talk to each other now that everything's out in the open like that."

"I feel the same way." Weiss said, her voice quiet. "But if we're going to be working closely together, then maybe we should make some more active strives to be better."

Blake hesitated, her eyes widening for a second. She pursed her lips for a moment, glancing away from Weiss like she was thinking it over. "You're going to need a suggestion."

"Well-" Weiss said, looking around the room. She didn't actually know how she was supposed to be able to connect with Blake. Combat was one thing, but Weiss didn't want for everything that the two of them did together to revolve around being huntresses. They were going to need something else.

For some reason, it made her think of something in Atlas.

"When I was younger-" Weiss began with a story, since she might have had an idea. "My older sister and I used to spend a lot of our time together. And when one of us was feeling down, we'd always end up having hot chocolate together. And then when we got older we started drinking coffee instead."

"You're suggesting that you and I have coffee together?" Blake deadpanned, expression mostly blank. "You don't even know if I _like_ coffee."

"You're right." Weiss sighed, "I don't. But I figured that it was a good enough starting offer if we're going to be... teammates. For real. We aren't partners, and we aren't siblings. We need to start somewhere."

Blake seemed to hesitated, but there wasn't any sign that Weiss had upset her. She blinked and let out a quiet breath, ears twitching along with the process before she said anything. "I'll go out for coffee with you." Blake said finally, picking her head back up so that their eyes could lock. "I'm trying to put what happened behind me. So are you. I understand that."

Weiss swallowed and offered a hand to Blake. "We have a deal?"

Blake got up and walked over to where Weiss was sitting. Before she could get there all the way, Weiss got up and was sure to meet her half-way.

Their hands met, and Weiss smiled up at Blake because it was real, tangible progress.

For a second too long, it felt like their touches had lingered. Weiss felt crushingly aware of it and pulled back before Blake could say anything. Her arms ended up behind her back, fingers twined together nervously. Even still, Weiss was sure to hold her head up high and not to let herself look like there could have been anything wrong.

"So," Blake said, taking a half-step back of her own to put just a bit more space between the two of them. "What other plans did you have in mind to become... closer?"

"I figured that sparring and practicing a team move was always possible..." Weiss said, but she couldn't help but feel like those things were the exact opposite of what she would have wanted to do. "But it was probably better if we started somewhere that _doesn't_ involve the battlefield."

"We will need to be able to trust each other on the battlefield too," Blake pointed out, cocking her head to the side just slightly. "You do realize that, right?"

"I know!" Weiss said, a little too snappishly. "And I do trust you out there, but we need something that isn't that."

"So what you want to do is have coffee dates." Blake says, and _that-_

Well, it's enough to make Weiss blush a little bit because while she had been suggesting that they go out for coffee somewhat regularly, the word date was one that she wouldn't have used for herself. That wasn't to say that she didn't think that Blake was interesting, or smart, or even funny when she wanted to be. That wasn't to say that Blake was even unattractive, it was just... complicated. For Weiss it was, at least. But she had her reasons.

"I... don't know if I'd say that." Weiss said, knowing that her face had turned cherry red already.

"Are you sure?" Blake asked, smirking a little bit. "Either way, I think that I wouldn't mind going out with you fo coffee. I just hope that you don't have some weird motive."

"I meant it." Weiss said, taking a deep breath and hoping that the blood would drain out of her face so that she could start feeling a little bit more calm. That probably wouldn't the outcome, because Weiss knew the way that these things tended to go and she had her doubts that she would have such luck. "I just want for the two of us to get to know each other better."

Blake nodded, and Weiss tried to read her expression for something that could tell her where the two of them stood in relation to each other. She didn't like the number of unknowns that there were when it came to Blake. Some of those were things that simply weren't her business- when she'd said that she didn't want to hear about Blake's time in the White Fang she had meant it. It was probably for the better that the two of them didn't know exactly which hurts had been inflicted on each other, no matter how indirectly.

The two of them needed to live in the now, and if that meant that she was going to be going out for coffee or tea or whatever it was that Blake liked regularly, then that was something that Weiss was ready for.

"Right." Blake said, smiling softly. "I guess that you and I should probably figure out when this will be anyways."

"Right." Weiss sighed, knowing that this was going to be the part where all of the awkwardness was likely to arise. "I was thinking that we could go tomorrow, after classes. I think that Ruby said that she and Yang had made plans to go out and do something as sisters, so that's probably our best chance."

Blake walked over towards her own desk, reaching for a small dark purple notebook that had been stored on the little bookshelf there. She pulled it out towards her and flipped it open, turning page after page until she found whatever it was that she was looking for. Weiss stood up on her toes just slightly, and that way she was able to see that Blake had gotten a planner out.

"We're going to be getting out of classes late tomorrow, you know that right?"

"Were we?" Weiss asked, feeling a spike of nervousness running through her. When she'd decided to come to Beacon, she'd had excellence in mind. Had she missed something about one of their classes that would be important? Something that had the potential to derail the way that her day would go. "I must have forgotten."

"We were supposed to go down to Forever Fall with Port." Blake said, gesturing Weiss over. Weiss came over and stepped up to her teammates side. Blake had the loveliest handwriting, neat and clean, looping and elegant. Weiss had never really looked at it before, but sure enough, there was the entry that Blake was talking about. "I figured that once we're done we'll probably be tired."

"Then we'll probably need the chance to unwind anyways." Weiss said, looking Blake in the eyes now. "So, do you want to go out for coffee with me or not, Blake Belladonna?"

"Yeah," Blake said as she picked up a pen which she offered to Weiss. "I would like to. But I should make it known that I prefer tea."

Weiss took the pen and looked down at the planner before leaning over and writing her own name there, in the space that Blake had pointed out. It felt a little like she was making an appointment, but that was something that Weiss could deal with.

She wrote her name there, and before Weiss finished, she hesitated. There was a slight urge on her part to leave a note of some sort. Something for Blake to remember this by.

Words escaped her, but Weiss left a little heart next to her name. That would be enough.

"Consider it a date." Weiss said, looking up and locking her eyes with Blake's again.

Blake saw the heart, and she too smiled. Weiss felt her heart jump in her chest because of it.

It wasn't much, but it was a good start. That was quite a bit on its own.

Within days, Weiss and Blake had gone out for coffee and tea together for the first time and they'd been able to enjoy that time and take comfort in it.

Within weeks, Weiss looked forward to their time out together more than anything else in the world. And Blake seemed to feel the same way.

It would figure that the world would fall apart on the night of Weiss and Blake's first honest to goodness proper date.

Someday, Weiss told herself- they would be able to do this again.


End file.
